How Women's Legal Protection from Physical Harm Affects Fertility: Evidence from Nigeria

Abstract

This paper estimates the impact on fertility of a 1999 reform that reduced litigants' rights for Muslim women in certain states of Nigeria. Using data from Demographic and Health Surveys, I find that, where enforced, the Reform increased the yearly probability of giving birth by 0.026. This effect stems from both a shift of fertility decisions within marriage towards husbands' preferences and an increase in the probability of being married. The change in marital status alone may explain 60% of the total increase in fertility. I also find that the enforced Reform increased women's labour supply.Equal legal rights for women is a defining feature of developed countries (Doepke et al. 2012). This paper estimates the impact of a legal reform adopted in Nigeria in 1999 that reduced female litigants' rights. It makes two contributions. First, it examines the role of the justice system on demographic outcomes. It thus addresses the question of the role of the legal system on development, raised in the studies cited above, and complements studies of the effects of other women's legal rights, such as enfranchisement (Miller 2008, Kose et al. 2016. I interpret theoretically the impact of this reform (hereafter capitalized) as a reduction in a woman's utility outside marriage.